Future Creatures

SinYu Deng, School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Collaborator: TzuYun Fun, SEAS

The “Future Creatures” project embarks on an imaginative journey to envisage speculative beings in a futuristic context rooted in sustainability. It explores the fusion of anticipated technological advancements and urban space requirements. By harnessing art and design through a series of photographic portraits, we aim to visually portray the imagined appearances of these future organisms.

This project provides profound insights into potential scenarios by melding future technology with natural biological traits, encouraging boundless imagination. Inspired by works like Dougal Dixon’s “After Man: a Zoology of the Future,” we focus on speculative evolution without predictive implications. The project visualizes future organisms’ potential form and function, represented by concepts like Ornithomech, Sensitron, AstroCybele, and Arachne Claw, each amalgamating future technology and natural aesthetics.

Our project is an interdisciplinary one that merges the art of photography with the exploration of futuristic biological entities. It goes beyond mere aesthetic presentation and technical aspects, depicting speculative future life forms.

SinYu has extensive experience in art photography and set design with experimental material, as well as a new media arts background. TzuYun brings expertise in environmental sustainability, manages styling execution, assists models in posing, and acts as a conceptual model utilizing her professional modeling experience in commercial and artistic photography, styling, and makeup.

Our collective experience in various photography projects positions us uniquely to collaboratively explore intriguing thematic conceptual photo shoots. Our combined skills have yielded significant achievements, including the 2023 Muse Photography Award for the work “Cocoon” under the Fine Art Photography – Portrait category.

This collaboration leverages our rapport from past projects, while challenges in styling are seen as opportunities for material experimentation. We anticipate a substantial impact through this project by promoting creative discourse on speculative design and future aesthetics. It encourages limitless imagination and intellectual engagement within the campus and local community, fostering discussions on the visual representation of potential future life forms.

This project culminates in a photography exhibition at the Duderstadt Gallery from March 4 to 12, 2024.